Winter's Shade
by Probeda
Summary: In this AU, Gilberto de la Vega was not stolen by his nursemaid and Elena did not die so young. Diego returns to California after a bitter seven year absence to find his family torn apart and the town under the tyrannical rule of the new alcalde.
1. Prologue

Further author's notes at end, but for immediate clarification, this is an AU set at the very beginning of the series, and in terms of timeline, starts maybe a few months after Ramone took office as the alcalde.

Prologue:

Gilberto pressed his heels into his horse's flanks and felt the animal surge forward beneath him. The horse kicked forward with gratifying speed. Gilberto dropped his head back and closed his eyes, giving himself to the wind. After a moment he dropped the reins and spread his arms wide, feeling nothing both the power of the animal beneath him and the sun on his face. With a second kick with his heels, his horse moved into a wild gallop. He could feel them bouncing all over the uneven terrain, but his perfect balance in the saddle kept him there with no strain. He could hear the others calling after him, their small voices trying to tie him back to the earth, but he just laughed and leaned back further. His horse could find a small hole and break its leg, Gilberto could be thrown from the saddle and break his neck. But that only made it so much better. He was young, and free, and what was life worth if you never _used_ it?

Gilberto was flung forward against his horse's neck as his horse suddenly bucked and stumbled, and only a wild grab at the horse's mane kept him in the saddle. There in front of him sat Sazon Correa on his heavy drab horse. Gilberto's much finer gelding slid to a lurching stop just a few inches from hitting him.

"You are going to get yourself killed, de la Vega," Sazon said, frowning. "You are going to get us all killed."

His expression was fierce and dour, surely enough to scare sense into anyone with reason, but fortunately Gilberto had been born without that dreaded disease. That had been entirely left for his twin. He laughed, thinking of the comparison. For if Diego were here, he might have said the same thing, only with that wry exasperation that he saved for most of Gilberto's wilder schemes.

But thoughts of his brother stole the smile from his face as quickly as they had conjured it. Because Diego wasn't here. Would never be here, and even after seven years, Gilberto could still not quite believe it. He was so used to it being Gilberto and Diego. Diego and Gilberto. But then Diego was gone, fled to Spain. He had been left, simply Gilberto, and he didn't know who that was. He'd only ever known where he was in relation to Diego. Without that compass, all he had left was the reflection he saw in other people's faces--Father's, Victoria's, the sons of the other wealthy caballeros: the charming son, the brave adventurer, the natural horseman and finest blade in the pueblo. Only to Diego, and possibly his mother, had he ever been anything else.

Gilberto tried to force these thoughts from his head, but try as he might, they wouldn't go. Diego had been much in his thoughts in the last few days, his mind turning there again and again. But it did little good. Diego wasn't coming back. In the first year, feeling Diego's lost presence everywhere like a phantom limb, he'd been so certain that it had all been a misunderstanding. Father and Diego would come to terms, and Diego would come back to Los Angeles where he belonged. Gilberto would marry Victoria and Diego would find some overly educated heiress with whom he could discuss boring points of philosophy deep into the night and everything would work out as it should. But the years went on, and there was no Diego, no frighteningly intelligent daughter of some wealthy nobleman, no serious dark eyed children who knew more at five than Gilberto was ever destined to.

"We are getting close to the pueblo," Gilberto said, forcing heartiness to match the perfect falseness of his smile. "It is time we changed."

The others had caught up by now. Most of them wore tight grins of anticipation, but a few looked worried. And of course there was Sazon, doleful as ever.

"Just because this scheme of yours has worked a time or two does not mean we will get away with it forever," Sazon said, jowly face settling into lines like his father's. "The alcalde looked the other way because he couldn't yet afford to annoy our fathers. But now with more soldiers in the town, and his position secure, he isn't going to tolerate much more."

Gilberto frowned. "If you're going to be like this, Sazon, you can just go home. We don't need you here."

But Sazon remained, inert as a boulder, before him. "I will only go if Benicio will come with me."

Gilberto turned to consider Benicio's reaction to this. Though they were brothers, Benicio and Sazon Correa could not be more different. Sazon was dark and solid, a practical, responsible man, though admittedly good with a sword in a tight spot. Benicio had his mother's lighter hair and attitude, with a sense of restlessness that outdid even Gilberto's.

"Someone must teach this Ramone a lesson," Benicio said grandly. "We are sons of important men. He cannot just order us about like peasants."

Gilberto smiled and pushed his horse around Sazon's to ride up to Benicio.

"Good man," he said, clapping him on the shoulder. "That is exactly right."

Gilberto turned his horse around to face the rest of the men. "Come on, boys. Don't listen to this old man here. What would be doing at home, eh? Riding around, looking for lost sheep, going to lunches to 'accidentally' meet some hideous daughter of one of your father's friends? Is that how you want to spend your life? Or would you rather be here, sword in your hand, fighting for justice?"

Sazon's granite face only settled into something more rock-like, but the rest of them were back with him now. Gilberto dug into the bag near his right knee and pulled out the mask and heavy velvet cape Diego had sent him. The mask was a cleverly fashioned eagle's head, complete with gilded beak and glowing yellow glass eyes. Gilberto had laughed to receive it, thinking of the usually solid and dependable Diego in the wild streets of a Carnival-mad Venice. He could almost picture it: Diego, set loose by a mask's peculiar freedom, tumbling through canals and back streets, going to midnight banquets, getting ensnared in the toils of an infamous courtesan. It was all too amusing.

He couldn't see well out of the eagle mask, but it was too perfect for this adventure to be left behind and brought such jealous stares. The others had their own disguises, but these were simple face masks of felt or cheap ceramic that had been made for local festivals.

When Gilberto put on the eagle's face and cape of rich deep golden velvet he felt like one of the great lords from Diego's letters, powerful and commanding. From the looks on his friends' faces, they agreed. He'd never really been in charge of men before. Oh, there were his father's people, but these were men of his own class, sons of wealth and privilege. He found it unexpectedly exhilarating--to give orders to men like these, to know they looked to him and no one else to lead them.

Gilberto spun his horse around and sent it towards town again. The soldiers would be out on patrol on this side of town by now. They were always good for a spot of fun, and Victoria was always so admiring when they found a pack of them bothering some poor peasant and sent them running. They'd been playing this game for weeks now, the masked adventurers out for justice, and there had never been any trouble. Only the tolerant amusement of their elders and the cheers of the townspeople.

Sure enough, there on the road sat a farmer and his son on their cart, being harassed by a pair of the new soldiers. Gilberto drew his sword and signaled his horse for greater speed. The well-trained animal responded beautifully, sending Gilberto ahead of all of the rest.

The soldiers startled upon his arrival, reaching for their guns. Gilberto ran his horse straight into them, slashing first at one's girth and then the other's. The saddles slipped, and one of the soldiers tumbled onto the ground.

"Release these men!" he shouted. "This new tax has not been approved by the governor, and the defenders of Los Angeles will not stand for it."

The others rode in, swords drawn, and surrounded the soldiers in a bright circle.

"We have warned you before," Gilberto said, enjoying the authoritative tone to his voice. "The common people may not be able to defend themselves, but that does not mean they are without protection."

The soldier on the ground scrambled to his feet, and his partner swung down from his saddle gingerly, careful of the damaged girth.

"Not so bold with men who can fight back, are you?" Nikola said.

But the soldiers weren't looking concerned. Usually by now they were running, or at least looking as if they'd like to, particularly after they'd forced that one group to march back into town in just their boots.

"Oh, we're willing to fight you," the second soldier said, eyes hard. "It's just that we were waiting for the right moment."

A gunshot rang out, and Gilberto heard a cry of pain behind him. He spun around, vision hampered by the mask, but saw Benicio lurching in the saddle. Sazon shouted, voice hoarse with denial.

More gunfire. Noise and smoke filled the bright careless day. A small group of soldiers on horseback had appeared from up over the small ridge beside the road and were bearing down upon them.

"What was it you said about courage when your prey fights back?" the hard eyed soldier said. Gilberto looked about in confusion. Most of his men were fleeing, scattering across the fields and into the scrub like frightened pigeons. A few stayed, fighting off the men in the cart who had thrown off their peasant cloaks to reveal themselves soldiers as well.

A trap. It was a trap. And Gilberto had led them straight into it.

Gilberto saw one of the soldiers start to raise his gun to aim at the backs of his friends. He kicked his horse into motion and sent it on a collision path. The soldier jumped at finding one of Gilberto's party attacking rather than trying to flee and lost his aim. Gilberto gathered his legs beneath him and leapt off his saddle, catching the soldier around the waist and sending them both tumbling out of the saddle. A solid punch finished the job, leaving his opponent senseless upon the ground.

Gilberto swore and pulled off his mask, throwing it to the side. One of his friends lay upon the ground not far away. He could spot Sazon in the near distance shoving Benicio on the horse with another man. There were only about ten soldiers, but with the muskets, his own men had no chance against them.

He picked up the unconscious man's gun and aimed it carefully at the soldiers' horses. He hated to wound an animal, but he could think of no other way to give his friends time enough to escape. One of them fell, screaming, sending its riders tumbling into the dust. His fingers fumbled at the gun, awkward and too large in his haste to reload. A hard sharp blow to his left shoulder sent him spinning around. He looked down, almost surprised to seeing a crimson stain blooming. The pain hit him a moment later, hot and fierce. He swayed, fighting down waves of nausea.

A soldier was running towards him, bringing up his musket. He stopped, took careful aim, but when he squeezed the trigger nothing happened. He swore, throwing aside the locked gun, and drew his sword. Gilberto only looked at him for a moment, the thought that he must defend himself only reaching his brain a moment before it was too late.

He dove to the side, tumbling as best he could to where he'd dropped his own blade when he'd tackled the other soldier. His reaching hand found the hilt, bringing it up just in time to block a swing from the charging soldier.

Gilberto trained with the sword daily. There was no one to match him in all of Los Angeles, perhaps not even in California, but his arm felt like it was weighted with great stones, and the bright sunlight dizzied him. For a moment it was all he could do to hold his own.

He could hear Diego's voice in his head, telling him not to give up, that he had to keep going. Diego never did give up, no matter what, and he'd never let Gilberto fall behind either. Gilberto took a deep breath, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, and pressed harder.

With a few quick strokes, Gilberto found his own ground again and began to force the soldier back. The pain was there, still, but he could manage it. No nameless military stooge was going to have the best of Gilberto de la Vega. He found his smile returning and increased the speed of his attack. No, when he told this story, it would be all about how Gilberto had fought back a pack of soldiers, wounded though he was, and saved the day. The others would never look at him the same again.

An unexpected lunge forward sent his opponent stumbling backward. Gilberto pressed his advantage and in a few short steps he had the man on the ground, hands raised in surrender.

"You cannot kill me. I am a soldier of the king!"

"I am not that foolish, I promise you," Gilberto said, trying to force an assured superiority to his tone that he did not feel. "I have defeated you on the field of battle. You must retreat and trouble me no more this day."

The soldier nodded hastily and Gilberto raised his sword. The soldier scrambled backwards, turning on his knees to claw his way to his feet. Gilberto started to turn to assess the rest of the field when he felt a second hard blow low in his back. He stumbled forward, his dizziness sending him to his knees. He felt like someone had shoved a burning brand all the way through him.

There were voices behind him. The pain was so very bad now, each breath became a hard, wet struggle.

"You shot him from behind!"

"He's a criminal."

"That's _Gilberto de la Vega_."

There were footsteps, and the hard eyed soldier came into Gilberto's fading vision. Gilberto tried to raise his sword, but the soldier just kicked it out of his hand.

"I don't care who he is," he said, looking down. "He attacked a company of the king's men and for that he's a traitor."

The man raised a boot and sent Gilberto sprawling on his back. The sun overhead in its clear blue sky burned into his eyes.

"He's done for. I'll not waste another bullet on the likes of him."

He could hear them, going away. Gilberto coughed, tasting the coppery thickness of blood. He knew what that meant. He'd heard too many of his father's stories not to.

_Oh Victoria, oh my dear love, I am so sorry._

It was only two months now, till the wedding. He knew they'd already started on the dress, even if he wasn't ­to know that. He held her image tight. There were supposed to have been children. They'd talked about it, so many times. He could see them, these children who would never be. Fierce brave daughters and wild beautiful boys, maybe twins, who would delight in driving their father crazy. He wanted to reach out to them, but his arms had no strength.

The pain in stomach grew with every heartbeat, a fierce tight pressure that stole his little remaining breath.

He'd never seen anyone die, not even his mother. He hadn't had the strength to watch her go, he didn't know what it was like to cross over. Gilberto had fled out into the field, out into his father's bright world, unable to look at what had become of their beautiful mother. Diego knew. Diego had been there--to hold her hand through the worst of the pain, to free her from her sick bed, his calm voice going on and on telling story after story. Gilberto had sat in the hall sometimes, listening to Diego spin stories of knights and dragons, of kings and heroes. He had run out of mother's familiar tales quickly. After that, for all Gilberto knew, he was just making them up. At night Diego would just fall into bed, pale and exhausted. Gilberto had rambled on, telling nonsense stupid stories about the horse he road that day, about the things he did with the other boys in Diego's absence, until the white pinched look left Diego's face and he was able to sleep. After the funeral, Diego's voice had been so hoarse he couldn't speak for three days.

In Mother's tales, the heroes always died bravely. She'd never said it was like this, cold and alone. He didn't want to die alone. He could face it, could be brave like his father would want him to be, but not like this, not alone.

He wanted Diego. Diego would hold his hand and tell him some ridiculous story about the strange people in the Spanish court like the ones that filled the letters he sent so often. The letters Gilberto so rarely answered, because he didn't know what to say besides _I miss you, Come Home._ Diego wouldn't judge him, if Gilberto was scared and cold. He never did, not when Gilberto had first broken his arm, not when Mother was so sick and they all knew she wouldn't get better. He wanted his brother.

Someone fell to their knees beside him and took his hand. He could barely feel it, but it was warm and solid. A dark shape leaned over him, blocking the too-bright sun.

"Diego?" he choked out.

The shape above him hesitated. "Yes."

But no, not Diego, someone . . .

"Sazon."

"Yes, de la Vega, it is me. The others have fled, the cowards, but I could not leave you to this."

Gilberto blinked, and somehow his eyes found focus. Sazon's face was covered in blood, and his free hand was tucked tight against his ribs.

"Benicio?"

"He'll live. Rest easy, de la Vega. Benicio made his own choice to come here. I place no blame on you for what happened to him."

There was something in Sazon's voice. It might almost be grief, but Gilberto knew Sazon held no love for him.

"The wound in your shoulder—it is nothing, but the other—I am sorry. I do not think there is anything that can be done."

Sazon, blunt until the end. It was almost funny.

"Is there anything you want me to tell Victoria?"

What could he tell Victoria? Beautiful, funny, sharp Victoria, who he'd never dreamed would say yes.

He shook his head as best he could.

"Tell Diego," he paused, struggled for breath that would not come. "Tell Diego to take care of her."

The hand in his pressed harder. "You have my word."

He couldn't see any more. Everything was getting cold and dark. He couldn't feel Diego's hand anymore. But that was wrong, wasn't it?

"Diego? Diego . . . where are you?"

Diego's hand tightened until Gilberto could feel it again.

"I'm here, brother," Diego said hoarsely. "You need to rest now."

That was okay, then. Diego would take care of things. That was what he did. Everyone always thought Gilberto was the stronger one, but he knew better. Gilberto closed his eyes. He didn't feel cold anymore and he was so tired.

Diego would wake him when it was time to go home.

Author's Notes:

So those of you who were unfortunate enough to have slogged through my previous story "All the King's Horses" while I was writing it are probably aware that I cannot precisely be called the swiftest writer in history. I do have a good chunk of this story written, but will likely not be posting any more of it until the story is done. I'm just far more disciplined about writing if I know people are waiting for new chapters. For those wondering where this story is going, it's largely an exercise in seeing what Diego would be like if he'd grown up with a brother and if his mother had died much later. There will, of course, be an explanation for the fall out between Diego and Alejandro, but not for a ways yet.


	2. Chapter 1

Author's note: I don't want anyone to get too excited. The story's nowhere near finished. I mostly wanted to indicate that I had not abandoned it. It kind of went off into a direction I really hadn't planned. The new direction required significant re-thinking and eventually re-writing, which is a great part of the delay in finishing it. It's a significant departure from the characterizations I wrote in "All the King's Horses", just to warn people if that's what they were looking for. I am trying to write a Diego who is less a Hero in the archetype sense and more of a hero in the everyday, human, give up things that are truly important to you to do what's right sense.

Someone asked in response to "Horses" if I accepted concrit, which I certainly do. I would prefer you attach your e-mail so I can respond, but don't hesitate to offer it if you wish to remain anonymous.

Chapter One:

The carriage jolted over the uneven ground, each rock and rut throwing Diego out of the inward spiral of his thoughts. The landscape outside the window drifted slowly, inexorably, by, and he could no longer deny that the view was becoming more and more familiar. Los Angeles could be no more than an hour away and Diego was by no means, even after all these weeks, prepared for this homecoming.

He'd said his final good-byes to this land seven years ago. Though he'd spent most of his life here it still felt slightly alien—untamed, chaotic, tumbling with possibility. His father's land, his brother's. Never quite his own. Gilberto, the older one, the captain of their childish adventures, the one who captured everyone's attention even at fifteen--he'd been the proper heir to this country.

Diego had left behind the wide open skies, the barren landscape for the familiar cities and palaces of his mother's memory. Europe had beckoned, and with so much grief lying here behind him, he had made no effort to resist its gilded seduction. In Europe he'd found everything his mother had promised—scholarship, men who thought of the elevation of the mind over the fattening of their purses, sharp, clever companionship. A path he could make for himself, rather than following only in the predetermined footsteps of his father.

And yet here he sat, his own plans sundered, the circle returning to the beginning, being pulled along back to his father's land. His whole world sundered by six simple words.

_Your brother is dead. Come home._

That was all the letter had said. But it was enough. His father had never needed an overabundance of words to make himself understood.

The words were smudged now: the work of his fingers rubbing across the parchment over and over as if the lines there inscribed were holy writ capable of granting miracles to the true penitent.

But no miracles had come. The words had remained unchanged. Your brother is dead. Come home.

So few words, to have destroyed his life so utterly.

The unreality of it lay hollow and cold in his chest. His mind could not bend around it—not on that sunny afternoon in Spain when he'd received the letter, not on the miles of open sea or open road that stretched between that moment and this. But every morning he'd woken on ship or some traveler's hostel and the words had been there as undeniable a truth as the fall of rain from heaven or the rising of the sun.

A package had waited for him in South America from Victoria. He almost had wondered why she'd bothered. Gilberto was still dead. Diego had still not been there. No amount of explanation about the whys and wherefores of his murder could change any of that.

But the long torturous journey had worked its way on his denial with each undeniable mile it pulled him closer to Los Angeles and the past. And he was the _rational_ one, wasn't he? The one who dealt in careful fact and reason. Of course he had to know. The fact that it would change absolutely nothing of consequence didn't stop that.

Victoria's explanation had held no surprises. If he'd learned anything, it was that man was the same wherever you looked for him, whether it was on a bloody stretch of road in California, or the great Cathedral in Sevillia or in the twisting back alleys of Venice. Petty tyranny lived everywhere, as did the will to oppose it. Gilberto had always been the hero, the one to pick up his sword or raise his voice in defense of those he felt less able to defend themselves, whether it was a servant or an overly studious younger brother. In mother's stories, the hero had always won. Sometimes at the cost of his life, and even at times with his lover also perishing at his side, but the dragon was always slain, the ogre dragged from the castle. But Diego had stopped believing in her stories about the same time she'd moved beyond being able to tell them.

Diego shoved the worn scrap of paper into his pocket, not wishing to tear it up. He swallowed hard and dug his fingers into his thigh until the moment had passed. If he gave into the waves of emotion that forever assaulted him he did not think he would be able to find his way out again. Responsibility lay ahead like the proverbial albatross, and he could not allow himself the self-indulgence of grief if he was to deal with it.

Indeed, he had less than the hour he'd estimated he had left to himself. The first buildings on the outskirts of town could now be seen. The de la Vega hacienda was no more than a half-hour's ride beyond that. He was going to have to go to town eventually, to look upon this alcalde whose men had left his brother to bleed to death on a lonely stretch of open road.

But that day was not today.

The carriage rattled on, leaving the town behind them, closing the last few miles all too quickly. A journey of thousands of miles and weeks and weeks upon sea-tossed ship and unpaved road behind him, and still he was not ready. He thought he could travel the world ten times over and still not be ready. He could have let the driver stop in town, water the horses, get some information from those in town who must still remember him. But he'd allowed himself too much cowardice seven years ago to grant himself any grace now.

So he called no instructions for the driver to pause, no requests for refreshment to unchoke the dust from his throat, and the road unwound under him until at last, there as no more.


	3. Chapter 2

Author's Notes at end of next chapter.

* * * * *

Alejandro sat at his desk, dutifully working out the draft of a letter to their agent responsible for the sale of their cattle in the big market in Monterrey. He sat here every afternoon at this time until four, when he went for an afternoon tour of a portion of the land with the ranch manager after which he had a brief rest and then supper. Each day passed like this, scheduled, ordered. Duty might provide more sanity than salvation, but it was all that he had.

It was what had saved him, after Elena. After illness had first taken her strength and then that beautiful wild light that had first attracted him before finally robbing him of her completely. He had made himself a schedule then, something to get him out of bed when facing the fact that he was losing her day by day became inescapable, something to keep himself going after they'd buried her.

He'd thought, having survived that once, that it would never again have to be borne. His parents were dead, the rest of his relatives scattered too far across Europe and the new world for closeness of affection. That he would have to bury a child had never occurred to him. His sons were young, healthy, the envy of most of his friends. They were his wealth, his legacy, his only tie to his wife now that she was gone. He had not thought that Providence would be so cruel as to rob him of her twice.

It was a foolish thought. He had been a soldier. He should have known better.

He had forgotten.

When they brought Gilberto to him, when he had seen what they had done to his beautiful, beloved child, he had been shown the cost of forgetting that lesson in terms he would not again forget. Had it not been for Sazon Correa reminding him that he had a second son, a son who must be told, he did not know what he would have done. Challenged the alcalde and gotten himself killed, likely.

Instead, hearing Correa's steady voice relating Gilberto's last words, he had sat at this very desk and scrawled out a line to Diego, summoning him home. He could not remember what he had said, just the intense feeling that Diego had to be told. Victoria had told him later that she had sent another letter, explaining everything. He remembered feeling grateful for that, knowing himself to be incapable of explaining Gilberto's death to his brother even after the weeks started their inevitable erosion of the first madness of his grief.

Now the days were filled with meaningless, necessary tasks. The ranch still required running, his people his direction. The other caballeros came around to offer condolences while salving their curiosity. If they had come to see the great Alejandro de la Vega a defeated shell of himself, they did not find him so. Alejandro would not give them the satisfaction. As comfort went, it was no more than drops of brackish water and a few crumbs of molding bread, but a starving man could afford to refuse nothing, not even so mean a feast.

The sound of carriage wheels on the stone of the road drifted in through the open windows. Alejandro heard the servants to go out to greet whoever it was who had come to disturb the hard-won rhythm of his day. The servants had become very good at turning people aside. Perhaps he should let them.

The noise from the road was not dying down however. If anything, it grew louder, more agitated. Alejandro laid down his pen. The ink had long dried on the tip with the letter largely unwritten. It seemed he was not going to be hiding behind his servants today.

A man stood in the center of the parlor, his back turned to Alejandro as he stared up at the portrait of Elena that hung on one wall. That he was someone of note the excited buzz of the servants and the long elegant lines of his extravagantly Continental travel attire made clear, but Alejandro could not recall news of any important travelers to the pueblo.

"May I help you, Senor?" Alejandro said, already wishing to return to the peace of his office.

But then the man turned and the full light from the library windows streamed across his face. For a moment he looked so much like Gilberto that Alejandro could not speak around the sudden sharp swelling in his throat and the remainder of his planned greeting dried up on his tongue. But no, not Gilberto, which could only mean . . .

"Diego," Alejandro said once, uselessly. Diego looked back at him, face shuttered. For a moment, the brittle crust of the last seven years rose up between them and Alejandro felt whatever else he might have said die on his lips, unspoken.

"Father," Diego said, bowing slightly, the prepossessed near-stranger of the carefully worded letters that dutifully arrived each month from Spain. But when he rose, his gaze meeting Alejandro's had gone a little wild and the hand that he had half-raised shook for a moment before tightening into a steadier fist.

"Diego," Alejandro said again, but this time his voice was stronger, himself more sure of what he must do. He took a few steps into the room, opening his arms. Diego looked surprised but then his oh-so-correct stance crumpled and he fell forward to meet Alejandro's embrace. Diego returned his grip with gratifying strength, letting Alejandro clutch at him as tightly as possible. He felt tears gather in the corners of his eyes and made no effort to stop them. He had spent so many years thinking he might never see this son again and here he was, tall and vibrant and _real_.

"Father," Diego said, taking one shaky breath and then another. Alejandro ran a hand up his back and didn't say anything until Diego's breathing had returned to normal. At last Diego straightened and Alejandro was forced to release him. At Diego's dazed look, Alejandro took his elbow and directed them to the couch.

"I'm sorry--I didn't mean to be so . . . " Diego paused, shook his head.

"I think you can allow yourself a moment," Alejandro said as gently as he could manage.

Diego nodded slowly and slumped back against the couch, eyes closed. Alejandro allowed himself at last to get a good look at him. He had been aware of the seven years he had been parted from this son on every holiday, every anniversary, every time some small seemingly innocuous moment brought Elena to his mind. But never so much as now, with the changes of nearly a decade so plain before him. Seven years ago, Diego had been not much more than a boy, angry over his mother's death, gangly and awkward with new growth. Like his brother, he'd grown further still, his frame filling out to fulfill the promise of his early height. In his great coat and exactingly tailored jacket, he cut quite the elegant figure. Alejandro had known he had lost that child of seven years ago in more ways than one, but it was still difficult to look upon this new Diego and not think of the many things Alejandro had missed in the absent years.

"You are so very changed," Alejandro said, unable to keep the note of regret out of his voice. "Somehow I had not expected that."

"It has been . . . a long time," Diego said, voice thick. He pulled himself upright and peeled his eyes open in what looked to be an act of some effort. It was clear that the long journey had taken its toll. Diego face was drawn and pale, and his eyes were sunken in deep sleepless hollows. He glanced around the room like he could find nothing to recognize, looking lost and worn.

"You must be exhausted," Alejandro said. He had not been expecting Diego for weeks yet. He had to have taken nearly the first ship from Spain, put up with rough seas and then immediately taken the trek over land in the worst of the seasonal storms. A wretched journey in the best of circumstances.

"Winter travel can be difficult, yes."

Alejandro rested one hand on Diego's shoulder, unable to keep from touching him. Diego leaned into the touch and Alejandro tightened his grip. He wished, not for the first time, that he had gone to Spain himself instead of sending the letter. It was impossible, he knew it--in the chaos that had descened after it was clear not even being a noble man's son protected you from this new alcalde he had been required here more than ever. But it was news Diego should not have born alone.

There was a slight crash, and Alejandro looked up to find Felipe hurtling himself into the room at full speed. He stopped a bare foot from Diego, blinding grin on his face. Alejandro might resent the intrusion except the child looked so plainly happy.

"Diego!" Felipe signed. Diego leaned forward, fatigue slipping behind a smile of welcome.

"And who is this? Some new man you've hired?" Diego said, looking back at Alejandro. The knowing curl at the edge of his smile was so painfully familiar it took a few seconds before Alejandro was able to fall into his own role.

"Our new ranch manager," Alejandro said, trying to match Diego's tone. "We needed someone once Julio finally retired."

Diego laughed at Felipe's look of consternation and stood, arms open. It was a happier sound than one might expect from his earlier solemnity. He'd only just gotten to his feet when Felipe propelled himself the final distance and wrapped both arms around him. Diego let him, wrapping one arm around the boy's shoulders before looking at Alejandro.

Alejandro shook his head at the clear question in Diego's eyes. "No change," he said quietly.

Diego nodded and turned back to Felipe. Felipe backed away finally.

"Can I show him his new room?" Felipe signed, eyes hopeful.

Alejandro forced himself to remember that he was hardly the only person who'd been missing Diego all these years. And the boy had spent weeks polishing every inch of the second bedroom, despite the fact that back then they hadn't expected Diego for months. He nodded his assent and Felipe immediately yanked Diego towards the back of the house.

"Diego," Alejandro called when they'd reached the doorway, not entirely able to let everything remain unspoken between them. Diego stopped Felipe with a touch and turned back.

"It is good to see you, son," Alejandro said, trying to convey how very much he meant by that. Diego nodded, expression troubled again.

"Go ahead," Alejandro said. "There will be time, later."

Felipe yanked on Diego's arm and Diego allowed himself to be pulled along again.

Alejandro looked over at the portrait of his wife that had so entranced Diego earlier.

_Well, Elena, your son has come home at last._


	4. Chapter 3

Diego let his path lead him where it would. He knew where it eventually must take him, and though it had been his object in setting out, he was in no great hurry to arrive.

In the clear cool light of just-post dawn, the ranch seemed an altogether different place than what he'd returned to yesterday afternoon. This early, before the sun had a chance to burn off the scant dew, the air had a scent of crisp green to it. He'd forgotten, or perhaps never realized, how clean everything smelled here compared to the packed alleyways of Madrid. A new world indeed, and not just in name.

At the hacienda there were people about even this early, but he'd turned his footsteps away from where he was likely to find them and now he walked in comfortable isolation. His father, he remembered, never slept much past dawn himself, but Diego doubted he himself would be missed. No one would be expecting him to be about this early and if his absence were discovered—well, he imagined his father would probably know where he had went.

The path curved around a rocky hillside and fell away just as he remembered, revealing a gentle slope that fell away into a broad sweep of rolling plains. On a clear morning like this one you could see the ocean glimmering in the distance.

He sat down on a large flat rock without having to look for it. He and Gilberto had come out here too many times before for him to have forgotten it, even after seven years. There had been a time, at maybe eight or nine, when this had been part of their every morning routine. Mother had, to say the least, not been an early riser, and two boys of more energy than sense had been too much to contain inside the walls of the hacienda. And so Buena had packed up a small breakfast for each of them, tied carefully in a scrap of cloth and sent them outside where their noise could bother nothing but the stray wild animal scared out of its hole.

Diego traced his fingers idly along the rock edge, remembering. They'd raced here, every morning. Gilberto had often won, though it was not always so. It had never really mattered. It had been the sense of freedom, of being set loose from Buena's knowing gaze to tumble full speed over rocks and gullies though they had been told a thousand times to be careful.

In the fresh scrubbed morning, the memory felt warm and a little melancholy, but not painful. He traced Gilberto's name where it was carved in the rock with one finger, smiling a little. The nine-year-old Gilberto had made an impressive conquistador.

_I, Gilberto de la Vega, claim this rock in the name of His Majesty, Carlos the Fourth!_

Diego had tried to explain that they could hardly claim a rock that had belonged to the king since before they were born, but Gilberto hadn't been much deterred by that logic. Gilberto never had been one to be restrained by something so pedestrian as fact.

Diego reached into his coat and drew out his own carefully wrapped breakfast, this time provided by Buena's young sister Maria now that Buena herself was married and gone. Change, and yet not. Maria's tortillas had much the same flavor of her sister's and despite her obvious nervousness and attempts to please, he'd detected that same disapproval that he wouldn't sit down for a proper breakfast that he remembered so well from Buena.

The sun was climbing higher now. If he wanted to reach his destination before the energy of the growing day stole over the quiet peace of the morning he needed to be off.

Ahead of him the path sloped down and across to his father's western pastures. But there was a cut about a hundred yards down the path that curved back towards the house and it was this one that he took.

On its way back to the hacienda, the path detoured to one particular spot. A spot designated by his grandmother, or so he was told. Far enough from the house not to loom over everything, close enough for visitation. A practical woman, his grandmother, from all accounts. It had been his mother, though, who had tended it, seeing it planted with native bushes and flowers so that it stayed green for most of the year.

Why come to a new world, she had always said, if you were just going to transplant the old one with you? And so her garden, like this carefully designated square, had been filled with native species, with only a few concessions to her nostalgia for the big gardens of her youth in Spain.

Diego had seen the gardens in Spain. They'd been old, well cultivated. One of the rose bushes was rumored to date from centuries before. His uncle's gardeners had been geniuses, carefully engineering the water supplies to provide year round irrigation even in the driest months. Upon descending to the gardens from his uncle's palatial country residence, one was met with a sense of overwhelming loveliness, but despite the almost orgiastic growth of the greenery, it had felt somehow sterile, manufactured. He preferred his mother's smaller, humbler efforts, which followed the rhythms of nature and bloomed only in season.

Under the shade of a large tree, the air retained the soft humidity of the earlier day and the crushed grass beneath his feet filled everything with the scent of earth and growing things. In the time since had left someone had added a stone bench here.

This had been his last stop before leaving for Spain. It seemed only appropriate that it should be his first upon his return.

The stone which covered his mother's grave still looked new, though one could begin to read the passage of time in the softened edge of one corner and the dust that had settled into the carved letters of her name. Kneeling in the soft earth at the base of her grave, He took his handkerchief from his pocket and cleaned the dust away. She'd been a tidy woman, always preferring things done with pride and attention over expense.

Task done, he settled himself fully on the ground, leaning a bit on the bench for support. In the dappled light that filtered through the branches overhead, the stone gleamed. She had loved just this sort of morning. At least once a week she'd tramp out across the ranch to the stream which fed the lower pasture. She'd perch there on a bench Alejandro had made just for that purpose and read for hours. When he and Gilberto had been young, they'd accompanied her as often as not, and she'd set them loose to find boyish treasures under rocks and in nests that they'd bring back for her approval. As they grew older Gilberto especially had been increasingly lost to the interests of learning to ride and track and handle a musket under the watchful eye of their father. But she had kept it up without them, packing up a novel or her pencils and sketchbook and reappearing only hours later, the hem of her skirt trailing dirt and with brambles tangled in her hair.

"I promised you I'd look after them," he said, looking up through the branches at the lacy patches of sky.

She hadn't asked it of him, but she had been so plainly terrified of leaving them, and there, at the end, it was the only comfort he had been able to think of that might matter to her. She'd been in so much pain, her faced always pinched and tired. Though she'd shaken her head, he'd promised again and again until finally she'd settled a little, smiling as well as she was able and stroking his hand.

His father had come in shortly after and taken him away. Alejandro had stayed with him, forcing him to eat though he couldn't taste it and then sitting with him and Gilberto in the dark until they'd finally been able to sleep. After that he'd closed himself in with his wife and hadn't left her until she died three days later.

Six months after that, Diego had been on a ship headed for Spain.

"I promised you, and you see how well I've kept it."

He forced himself to look down again, to look finally at the stone beside hers. The stone would be very new. It would have taken months to find the proper stone, to have it shaped and polished. Darker than his mother's, the incisions into the stone deeper and sharper. His name, the dates that bracketed his life.

_Gilberto_.

There had been a part of himself, consciously denied but still not entirely exorcised, that had not quite believed. Gilberto could not be dead, the entire concept a logical fallacy. It was _Gilberto_. Diego had just received a letter from him, mere weeks before his father's, full of Gilberto's characteristic, charmingly directionless ramblings about his new sword and the coming wedding and the new delightful game he and the others were playing with the new alcalde. Death was not a word that belonged in the same world as the person in that letter.

In his waking hours Diego kept this corner of his thoughts ruthlessly quashed, but it showed up in dreams sometimes. Dreams where Gilberto was alive, married, Victoria on his arm flushed and beautiful. Dreams where it had all turned out to be a mistake, that his father had been wrong, and when he rushed home to the hacienda they all were there in the garden together. In one particular, horrific variant, his mother sat among them, laughing with a grandchild on one knee. He'd rushed into the garden, but he'd been the ghost, his fingers catching nothing, his cries falling unheard. But then his mother looked at him, expression pitiless, and told him he'd chosen to leave and would have to live with that now.

After that dream he hadn't let himself sleep for two days.

The letter that Victoria had sent him had dealt that traitorous hope its first serious blow. The first sight of his father, lessened and grey, had been another. And here, with letters inscribed in stone, was the last.

"She warned us, remember?" Diego said, speaking to Gilberto's name on the stone. Impossible to think that his brother was buried beneath it. That this was all that remained of him. "She told us all of the time that to be a twin was a special destiny, that we must look out for each other. I forgot that. I _let_ myself forget that.

"You remembered. You never did stop trying to remind me." Gilberto had never been subtle. If he only rarely directly asked Diego to come to California, the request was there to be found in every letter that went to Spain. It had been there in every tale of adventure that "Diego should have been a part of", every story about this thing or that he remembered from when they were little, every mention of some wealthy, beautiful heiress that was in need of a suitor. Diego, who had known his brother so well, could not now deny that he had read that message, however unwritten.

It didn't matter that he'd give anything to take it back. Give all the days in Europe, all the unwritten moments that still stretched before him as his life, if he could have been there that day to try to inject Gilberto with some sense, to remind him that though he might be playing a game, the soldiers were not. Gilberto had always flown too high, and he'd never paid attention to the sun melting the wax from his wings. Diego had known that, had been forever pulling Gilberto back to the earth beside him. And yet, knowing that, he'd gone to Europe anyway.

Diego took a long, shuddering breath. "You always did have to wait for me, but I have finally remembered. I wanted you to know that. To know that you haven't left them alone, that I will try to take care of them like you would have."

He didn't entirely yet see the way, but there was a glimmering of a plan, tied up with the stories of Gilberto's bright heroics and Sr. Edward's saber locked up in secret in his trunk. A part of him wanted to just take that saber, ride into the pueblo, call out the alcalde and have done with, with none of this ever present need for caution. But he could not do that and keep his promises and it would be, in the end, just another sort of running away.

He pulled himself to his feet. His father very well might have sent someone looking by now and he had no wish to be found here. He had needed to come here, to see them, to tell them that he remembered his promises now. But as much as he might like to stay here, to sit with them for just a little while, he had not returned from Spain for this.

He looked down on them for one final moment, but then he turned, walked deliberately out of this small, peaceful spot, and set his feet on the path towards the house.

Author's Note: This is purely because a few people asked me about this story lately. I'm not entirely married to these two chapters and anticipate that they'll possibly at least change a bit before the final version. I have the feeling that it wants another chapter between the last and this and possibly for the last one to change POV. I really can't make any promises about finishing this story, given my present schedule. But I haven't entirely abandoned it either. I imagine I'll have some more time this summer, but whether I devote it to this story or to fixing the last one I have yet to decide.


End file.
